Data Privacy Policy

Our website may be used without entering personal information. Different rules may apply to certain services on our site, however, and are explained separately below. We collect personal information from you (e.g. name, address, email address, telephone number, etc.) in accordance with the provisions of German data protection statutes. Information is considered personal if it can be associated exclusively to a specific natural person. The legal framework for data protection may be found in the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) and the Telemedia Act (TMG). The provisions below serve to provide information as to the manner, extent and purpose for collecting, using and processing personal information by the provider.

Cookies

Our website makes use of so-called cookies in order to recognize repeat use of our website by the same user/internet connection subscriber. Cookies are small text files that your internet browser downloads and stores on your computer. They are used to improve our website and services. In most cases these are so-called “session cookies” that are deleted once you leave our website.

To an extent, however, these cookies also pass along information used to automatically recognize you. Recognition occurs through an IP address saved to the cookies. The information thereby obtained is used to improve our services and to expedite your access to the website.

You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

Server Data

For technical reasons, data such as the following, which your internet browser transmits to us or to our web space provider (so called server log files), is collected:

– type and version of the browser you use
– operating system
– websites that linked you to our site (referrer URL)
– websites that you visit
– date and time of your visit
– your Internet Protocol (IP) address.

This anonymous data is stored separately from any personal information you may have provided, thereby making it impossible to connect it to any particular person. The data is used for statistical purposes in order to improve our website and services.

Purpose of Registering

We offer you the opportunity to sign up for our website. The information entered when signing up, as shown in the registration form

NAME, EMAILADRESS

is collected and stored solely for use by our website. When signing up for our website, we also store your IP address and the date and time you registered. This serves to protect us in the event a third party improperly and without your knowledge makes use of your data to sign up for our site. None of this information is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Newsletter

Our website offers you the opportunity to subscribe to our newsletter. The newsletter provides you periodically with information about our services. To receive our newsletter, we require a valid email address. We will review the email address you provide for the purpose of determining whether you are in fact the owner of the email address provided or whether the actual owner of said address is authorized to receive the newsletter. When subscribing to our newsletter, we will store your IP address as well as the date and time you subscribed. This serves to protect us in the event a third party improperly and without your knowledge makes use of your email address to subscribe to our newsletter. We will not collect any other data. The data thereby collected is used solely for the purpose of receiving our newsletter. No data is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that other components of our website may collect. You may cancel your subscription to the newsletter at any time. You will find additional details in the email confirming your subscription as well as in each newsletter.

Contacting Us

On our website we offer you the opportunity to contact us, either by email and/or by using a contact form. In such event, information provided by the user is stored for the purpose of facilitating communications with the user. No data is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Posting Comments

On our website we offer you the opportunity to post comments about individual articles. For this purpose, the IP address of the user/internet connection subscriber is stored. This information is stored for our security in the event the author through his/her comments infringes against third party rights and/or unlawful content is entered. Consequently, we have a direct interest in the author’s stored data, particularly since we may be potentially liable for such violations. No data is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Subscribing to Comments

On our website we offer you the opportunity to subscribe to subsequent comments about an article which you intend to comment on. When you choose this option, you will receive a confirmation email which is used to determine if you are actually the owner of the email address entered. You may at any time revoke your decision to subscribe to such follow-on comments. You will find additional details in the confirmation email. No data hereby obtained is transferred to third parties. Nor is any of this information matched to any information that may be collected by other components of our website.

Use of Google Analytics with anonymization

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service from Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter referred to as “Google“. Google Analytics employs so-called “cookies“, text files that are stored to your computer in order to facilitate an analysis of your use of the site.
The information generated by these cookies, such as time, place and frequency of your visits to our site, including your IP address, is transmitted to Google’s location in the US and stored there.
In using Google Analytics our website employs the extension, “_gat._anonymizeIp”. In doing so, Google abbreviates and thereby anonymizes your IP address before transferring it from member states of the European Union or signatory states to the Agreement on the European Economic Area.
Google uses this information to analyze your use of our site, to compile reports for us on internet activity and to provide other services relating to website and internet use. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law or where such third parties process this data on Google’s behalf.
Google states that it will in never associate your IP address with other data held by Google. You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.
Furthermore, Google offers a deactivation add-on for most current browsers that provides you with more control over what data Google can collect on websites you access. The add-on tells the JavaScript (ga.js) used by Google Analytics not to transmit any information about website visits to Google Analytics. However, the browser deactivation add-on offered by Google Analytics does not prevent information from being transmitted to us or to other web analysis services we may engage. You can find additional information on how to install the browser add-on at the following link:

Use of Google+ recommendation components

Our website employs the “+1“-buttom from Google+ belonging to Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter referred to as “Google“.
Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a “+1“ component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from Google. Through this process, Google is informed precisely which page of our website is being visited.
As specified by Google, your visit undergoes additional analysis in the event you are not logged into your Google account.
If you access our site while logged into Google and press the “+1″ button, Google can collect information about your Google account, websites you recommend as well as your IP address, along with other browser-related information.
This allows your “+1“ recommendation to be stored and publicized. Your Google “+1“ recommendation can then appear as a reference in other Google services, such as search results, your Google account or other places, such as on websites and ads in the internet, , together with your account name and, if applicable, a picture you provided to Google. Furthermore, Google can link your visit to our site with data stored by Google. Google also records this information for the purpose of further improving Google services.
If you wish to minimize the collection of information by Google as previously described, you must log out of your Google account before visiting our website.

You can access Google‘s data protection policies relating to the “+1“ button together with all relevant information on the collection, transfer and use of data by Google, your rights in this regard as well as your profile settings options at the following link:

Use of Facebook components

Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a Facebook component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this Facebook component. Through this process, Facebook is informed precisely which page of our website is being visited.

When you access our site while logged into Facebook, Facebook uses information gathered by this component to identify the precise page you are viewing and associates this information to your personal account on Facebook. Whenever you click on the “Like“ button, for example, or enter a comment, this information is transmitted to your personal account on Facebook and stored there. In addition, Facebook is informed of your visit to our website. This occurs regardless of whether you click on a component or not.

If you wish to prevent the transfer to and storage of data by Facebook about you and your interaction with our website, you must first log out of Facebook before visiting our website. The data protection policies of Facebook provide additional information, in particular about the collection and use of data by Facebook, your rights in this regard as well as the options available to you for protecting your privacy: https://de-de.facebook.com/about/privacy/

Use of Twitter recommendation components

Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a Twitter component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from Twitter. Through this process, Twitter is informed precisely which page of our website is being visited.
We have no control over the data that Twitter collects in the process, or over the extent of the data that Twitter collects. To the best of our knowledge, Twitter collects the URL of each website accessed as well as the IP address of the user, but does so solely for the purpose of displaying Twitter components. Additional information may be obtained from the Twitter data privacy policy, at: http://twitter.com/privacy.

Use of LinkedIn recommendation components

Our website employs components provided by the network LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a service of LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Each time our website receives an access request equipped with a LinkedIn component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from LinkedIn.
Through this process, LinkedIn is informed exactly which page of our website is being accessed. By clicking the LinkedIn “recommend button“ while logged into your LinkedIn account, you can link content from our website to your LinkedIn profile. This allows LinkedIn to associate your visit to our site with your LinkedIn account.

We have no control over the data that LinkedIn collects thereby, nor over the extent of the data that LinkedIn collects. Nor do we have any knowledge of the content of data transferred to LinkedIn. Details on data collection by LinkedIn as well as your rights in this regard and your browser setting options may be obtained from the LinkedIn data privacy policy, which may be accessed at: http://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

Use of YouTube components with enhanced data protection mode

To this end, we use the “ – enhanced data protection mode – ” option provided by YouTube.

When you display a page that has an embedded video, a connection will be made to the YouTube server and the content will appear on the website via a communication to your browser.

According to the information provided by YouTube, in “ – enhanced data protection mode -”, data is only transferred to the YouTube server, in particular which of our websites you have visited, if you watch the video. If you are logged onto YouTube at the same time, this information will be matched to your YouTube member account. You can prevent this from happening by logging out of your member account before visiting our website.

Further information about data protection by YouTube is provided by Google under the following link:

Use of AddThis

Our website employs the bookmark service addthis.com. AddThis is a service of Clearspring Technologies Inc., 8000 Westpark Drive, Suite 625, McLean, VA 2210, USA. Each time our website receives an access request equipped with an AddThis component, the component prompts your browser to download an image of this component from AddThis. Through this process, AddThis is informed exactly which page of our website is being accessed. In addition, addthis.com also records your IP address, browser type, browser language, the website previously accessed as well as the date and time you visited the site and uses this data to compile an anonymized user profile. This data allows AddThis and its partner companies to direct targeted personalized ads at website users based on their particular interests. The display of advertising material occurs based on a browser cookie put in place by addthis.com, which analyzes user interaction with the website. You can permanently prevent addthis.com from placing a cookie on your browser by downloading and installing the opt-out cookie available at the following link: http://www.addthis.com/privacy/opt-out.

You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website. You can find the data privacy policies for AddThis at the following internet address, along with information about the collection and use of data by AddThis: http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy

Use of Pinterest

Our website employs the services of pinterest.com. Pinterest.com is a service of Pinterest, Inc., 808 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA. Through the “Pin it“ button integrated into our website, Pinterest is informed that you have accessed that particular page of our site. If you are logged into Pinterest, Pinterest can associate your visit to our site with your Pinterest account and thereby create a link to the data collected. Pinterest stores the data that is transferred through clicks on “Pin it“ buttons. You can find more information with respect to the purpose and extent of data collected, how it is processed and used as well as your rights in this regard and what settings you can use to protect your privacy by consulting the Pinterest data protection policy, which you can access at http://pinterest.com/about/privacy/.

To prevent Pinterest from associating your visit to our website to your Pinterest account, you must first log out of your Pinterest account before visiting our site.

Use of MailChimp

Newsletter Consent

You will be asked to consent to the use of your personal data to receive our newsletter as follows:

“I have read the privacy policy and I give my consent to data being processed by a service provider located in the United States”.

We use the newsletter to provide you with regular updates about our offers. To receive our newsletter, you will need a valid email address. We will then check the email address entered to ensure that you are actually its owner or if its owner has agreed to receive our newsletter. By registering for the newsletter, we will save your IP address and date and time of registration. This will be used in case a third party misuses your email address to subscribe to our newsletter without your knowledge.

We will not compare the data collected during newsletter registration with any other data that might be collected by other components of our site.

Newsletter by MailChimp

We use MailChimp to send our newsletter to our subscribers. MailChimp is a service provided by The Rocket Science Group, LLC, 512 Means Street, Suite 404, Atlanta, GA 30318, USA.

The data stored when you registered for the newsletter (email address, name, IP address, and time and date of registration) will be sent to a server operated by The Rocket Science Group in the United States and stored there in accordance with its Safe Harbour Agreement.

Further information about the data protection offered by MailChimp can be found at:

You may cancel your newsletter subscription and revoke your consent to the storage of this data at any time with future effect. For instructions to take this step, please refer to the confirmation email and each newsletter.

Newsletter tracking

Our newsletter includes so-called web bugs that allow us to recognise if and when an email has been opened and which links in the email have been clicked by its recipient.

This data is stored by us so that we can best align our newsletter to the wishes and interests of our subscribers. Accordingly, the data thus collected is used to send personalised newsletters to each recipient.

You will be asked to consent to the use of your personal data as follows:

“I agree that my data and my user responses will be stored electronically by newsletter tracking so that I can receive a personalised newsletter. The revocation of the consent to receive the newsletter constitutes a revocation of the consent for the tracking described above.”

By revoking the consent to receive the newsletter, the consent to the aforementioned tracking is revoked.

Use of affiliate tracking cookies

Our website employs affiliate tracking cookies in order to correctly record sales and/or leads. Cookies are small text files that are saved to your computer when you visit a website. These affiliate tracking cookies do not store personal data of any kind. Instead, it only collects the identification number of the intermediary partner as well as the reference number of the advertising material that was clicked on by the visitor to the website. This information is required in order to process the payment transaction between the website operator and the advertiser. The partner identification number serves to designate the intermediary partner to which a commission is to be paid once a transaction has been concluded.
You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

Information/Cancellation/Deletion

On the basis of the Federal Data Protection Act, you may contact us at no cost if you have questions relating to the collection, processing or use of your personal information, if you wish to request the correction, blocking or deletion of the same, or if you wish to cancel explicitly granted consent. Please note that you have the right to have incorrect data corrected or to have personal data deleted, where such claim is not barred by any legal obligation to retain this data.